Alter Ego

A group of Ukrainian filmmakers have won the top industry award at Swiss international documentary film festival Visions du Réel with their project “The Days I Would Like to Forget,” divided into three chapters, each of which will explore a different phenomenon of war. Filmmakers Alina Gorlova (“No Obvious Signs,”…

Australian satirist Barry Humphries, known for his onstage and TV drag persona Edna Everage and for his character Sir Les Patterson, has died. He was 89. The BBC reported that Humphries had been in hospital in Sydney, Australia and had been suffering from complications following surgery in March. “A great…

The best received of Spanish series at last month’s Málaga Festival, “Nights in Tefía” (“Las Noches de Tefía”) hit the festival with already strong buzz. The latest from Spain’s Buendía Estudios and SVOD service Atresplayer Premium whose titles also include “Veneno” and “Cardo,” “Nights in Tefía” proved a critics’ favourite.…

British presenter and comedian Paul O’Grady has died. He was 67. O’Grady’s death was confirmed to the BBC by his partner Andre Portasio, who said the popular TV host died “unexpectedly but peacefully” on Tuesday evening. O’Grady was known for his drag queen persona Lily Savage, and had been performing…

Showtime’s buzzy, bloody drama “Yellowjackets” finds itself in a most precarious position going into its second season. Trying to top a successful first season is always a challenge, particularly when the maiden voyage earns six Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Drama. But the inherent pressure to maintain the momentum…

Why did they give Zachary Levi a haircut for “Shazam! Fury of the Gods”? Four years ago, in the first “Shazam!,” Levi played a kid in a superhero’s body, and the movie was smart and witty enough to come off as a caped version of “Big.” Levi’s look was a…

Spanish filmmaker Félix Viscarret, known for tackling such heavy subject matter as the Basque conflict (“Patria”), crime in the Cuban capital Havana (“Four Seasons in Havana: Winds of Lent”) and psychological drama (“Staring at Strangers”), has made perhaps his most personal film yet with a touching and engrossing story of…

The “evil twin” school of psychological metaphor has been a frequent device in horror fiction, and its familiarity does not much benefit the very literal-minded “Appendage.” Writer-director Anna Zlokovic’s first feature centers on a young Manhattanite whose insecurities manifest themselves in the form of a mini-me who becomes a serious…

Writer-director-star Alex Heller’s debut feature is a fictive spin on the very crisis she experienced at age 19, when she dropped out of college and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Not the weightiest screen treatment of a serious mental health issue, this drolly self-deprecating portrayal nonetheless achieves a degree of…

Making its world premiere in the Generation Kplus program at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 19, “L’Amour du monde” (“Longing for the World”) is the feature debut from filmmaker Jenna Hasse.  Latido Films manage international sales and will be looking to add to their haul from the previous two…

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which sees the return of Paul Rudd’s subatomic superhero, is expected to reinvigorate the sluggish winter box office when the latest Marvel adventure opens in theaters over the weekend. Disney’s third standalone “Ant-Man” movie is expected to collect $95 million to $100 million in North…